OPEN: Kirkwail

[faderifting]

WHO: Anyone
WHAT: Ghosts
WHEN: Wintermarch 20
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: OOC post. More content warnings than you can shake a stick at, probably, including allusions to slavery and violence in the body of the log post. Please use appropriate warnings in the subject lines for your own threads.

The storm sweeps in like an assassin: unexpected, in the dark, and throwing sharp pricks of sleet at exposed eyes and noses with expert aim and enough force to almost draw blood if the angle is right. Half an hour after the clouds crest the cliffs is all it takes for the city to retract indoors and huddle around fireplaces, settling in for a long night that will, unforeseen, turn into a long two days.

The Gallows, too, is pelted with ice; the walls of the cliffs and the fortress protect much of it from the worst of the wind, but when it can find a path over or through the walls, it slams through windows or doors to scatter papers and snuff out fires.

In the dark, in the rain, hurrying between towers or already accustomed to jumping firelight casting strange shadows and the wind howling like a wounded animal, people might be forgiven if they don't notice at first. But there's a hanging in the courtyard, a dozen translucent wisps of bodies dangling from the idea of nooses, and there's a girl's voice in the basement of the templar tower screaming for her mother, and there's a ghostly man in the library holding the blade of a knife to his palm and whispering this is it, this is it—or maybe there isn't, actually, when you lift your head to pay closer attention.

But as the night wears on they multiply, and they brighten, and even if you haven't noticed them, they begin to notice you.

Comments

[circleprodigy]

"Nor am I." Inessa shakes her head, pale and drawn. All her arcane training has not prepared her for this moment, and she's at a a loss. It's an unfamiliar, unpleasant feeling, being completely adrift. But she's not alone, and that gives her enough strength to keep the fog of panic at bay for now. "We'll ask around, look around...as long as there's any place unexplored, we're not done."

[in_death_sacrifice]

Kain nods slowly, taking a deep, calming breath. At least they're in this together at the moment. It's not so easy to deal with it alone. He'd almost thought he was going crazy at first, but... there's a lot more to it than that. Ugh, how he hates dealing with this sort of thing, something that's so far beyond him...

"Then let's see what we can find out. Anything has to be better than just waiting around." He's never one to stay idle anyway, preferring to take some kind of action whenever he possibly can.